𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲

ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ ⏯️: ʜᴏᴡ ʙᴏᴜᴛ ɴᴏᴡ ʙʏ ᴅʀᴀᴋᴇ

QUINCY, FLORIDA📍𝓝𝓪𝓭𝓲𝓪 𝓙𝓪𝓷𝓪𝓲 𝓜𝓸𝓷𝓻𝓸𝓮

The humidity in Florida didn't just hang in the air; it clung to you like a wet blanket, a constant reminder that you were miles away from the climate-controlled luxury of Atlanta. You remember sitting at that mahogany dinner table two weeks ago, your parents' faces illuminated by candlelight as they dropped the bomb. You thought they were joking when they mentioned the Monroe girl coming to stay, thinking it was just some distant cousin. But then your father explained the rehab agreement, his voice firm as he described a girl who had lost her way in the city lights and needed the grounding only the soil could provide.

You’d spent your whole life on this land, turning eighteen and then twenty without ever feeling the itch to leave the rows of crops and the familiar sound of the tractor. You had your own place now, a sturdy little house on the back forty that smelled like cedar and independence. You were a man of the earth, proud of the calluses on your palms and the sweat on your brow. You didn't understand people like Nadia Janai Monroe—people who lived for likes on a screen and spent more on a pair of shoes than your father made in a month of harvests.

The night she arrived, the air felt different, charged with a vanity that didn't belong in the South. A black SUV had crawled up the dirt driveway, its pristine paint job looking like a sin against the dust. When the door opened, Nadia stepped out like she was walking onto a music video set. She was breathtaking, a vision of dark skin and designer labels, but the moment she opened her mouth to complain about the smell of manure, the spell was broken. She looked at you like you were a piece of the scenery, a background character in the movie of her life.

Your parents had tried to be hospitable, but Nadia wasn't having any of it. She sat through dinner with her phone in her hand, her long, manicured nails clicking against the screen as she sighed loudly at every mention of the "work schedule." She was spoiled, stuck up, and clearly thought she could bat her eyelashes at your father to get out of the manual labor. But the contract was signed, and your father was a man of his word. Starting Monday, the 'Princess of Piedmont' was going to be your shadow, and you weren't looking forward to it.

The first week was a disaster of epic proportions. She showed up for the 6:00 AM call time wearing a white tracksuit and literal fur slides, looking at the muddy path to the stables with genuine horror. You’d tried to be patient, handing her a pair of old work boots, but she’d looked at them like they were covered in the plague. "I'm not putting those dusty things on my feet, deadass." She’d snapped, her Atlanta accent thick and full of attitude. You’d ended up leaving her behind, let her walk the fields in her slippers just to watch the mud ruin them.

Now, we were deep into the second week, and the honeymoon period of her silence had turned into a full-blown war of words. The Florida sun was beating down on the strawberry patch, the heat radiating off the black plastic lining the rows. It was back-breaking work, leaning over to pick the ripe fruit and avoid the thorns, and Nadia was doing everything in her power to do absolutely nothing. She spent more time checking her reflection in the screen of her dead iPhone than she did actually filling her basket.

The strawberry patch was supposed to be a place of quiet productivity, but with Nadia there, it was a soundscape of complaints. She hated the bugs, she hated the sun, and she especially hated the way you looked at her when she messed up. You watched her from the next row over, your own basket nearly full while hers contained exactly three bruised berries and a handful of leaves. She was a hurricane of no, a girl who had never been told 'no' in her entire life until she met you and this farm.

You remember the way your father told you to be firm but fair. He knew you had a temper when it came to laziness, but he also knew you had a soft spot for things that were broken. But Nadia didn't look broken; she looked entitled. She looked like she expected the strawberries to jump into the basket themselves because she was too pretty to sweat. Every time you tried to show her the proper technique, she’d roll her eyes and look away, humming some R&B song to drown out your instructions.

The farm life was simple, and you liked it that way. You woke up, you worked, you ate, and you slept. There was no room for the clout and the vibes that Nadia kept talking about. She tried to tell you about the parties in Buckhead, the rappers she knew, and the clubs where she never had to wait in line. You just listened in silence, thinking about how none of that mattered when the crop was failing or the rain wouldn't come. You were two different species, and the strawberry patch was the cage you were both trapped in.

As the afternoon progressed, the heat reached a fever pitch. You could see the sweat beads forming on Nadia’s forehead, ruining her carefully laid edges. She was huffing and puffing, her designer top stained with red juice and dirt. You knew she was reaching her breaking point, and honestly, you were looking forward to it. You wanted to see the city girl crack, to see if there was anything real underneath the layers of makeup and the arrogant facade she wore like armor.

She suddenly dropped her basket, the few berries she’d managed to pick rolling into the dirt. She stood up straight, wiping her hands on her expensive leggings with a look of pure, unadulterated rage. Her eyes were flashing, that deep brown turning almost amber in the harsh light. She looked like she wanted to scream, and the silence of the farm seemed to be mocking her. You stopped your work, standing up to face her, your hands on your hips as you waited for the explosion.

The tension between you was thick enough to cut with a tractor blade. You were tired of her attitude, and she was tired of your orders. To her, you were the jailer keeping her away from her life. To you, she was the burden you never asked for. You thought back to your own youth, how you’d earned every cent you had, and how this girl was crying over a little dirt. It made your blood boil, the sheer unfairness of her privilege clashing with your reality.

You’d tried to be the bigger person for days, ignoring the slick comments she made about your clothes and your little country house. But everyone had a limit, and Nadia Janai Monroe had just pushed yours. You looked at the ruined berries on the ground—work that someone else would have to do now—and you felt the familiar heat of frustration rising in your chest. You weren't a servant, and you weren't her daddy. You were a man who worked for what he had, and you weren't going to let some brat disrespect your land.

The cicadas seemed to get louder in the trees, a buzzing drone that filled the silence as you stared each other down. Nadia took a step toward you, her slides crunching on the dried leaves, her chin tilted up in that defiant way that said she was ready to go to war. She didn't care about the agreement anymore; she just wanted to hurt you the way the heat was hurting her. She looked at your sweat-soaked shirt and your dirty jeans with a sneer that would have withered a weaker man.

You thought about the girl you’d met at dinner—the one who was pretty but had the ugly attitude was not. It was an understatement. She was a nightmare in a fashion Nova fit, a girl who thought the world owed her everything just for existing. And here you were, the one tasked with teaching her that the world doesn't care how many followers you have when you're standing in a strawberry patch in the middle of nowhere, Florida. The rehab was starting now, whether she liked it or not.

The argument started before the first word was even spoken. It was in the way you tightened your grip on your basket and the way she flared her nostrils. You knew what she was going to say before she said it—some remark about how dusty this place was or how she was too good for this. You were ready for it. You were ready to tell her exactly where she could shove her designer bags if she didn't pick up that basket and start working.

She tossed her hair back over her shoulder, a dramatic gesture that only made her look more ridiculous in the middle of a farm. She took a deep breath, the scent of the ripening fruit mixing with her expensive perfume, creating a cloying, suffocating aroma. She was shaking, her hands balled into fists at her sides, and for a split second, you saw a flash of real emotion in her eyes—not just anger, but a desperate, lonely sort of frustration that she quickly masked with a smirk.

"You really think you doin' somethin', don't you, Farmer Joe?" She hissed, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she kicked at the dirt, sending a cloud of dust over your boots. "Standing there looking all 'hardworking' and 'country strong' while I'm out here literally dying in this heat? Mane, please. My daddy pays more in taxes than this whole raggedy farm is worth. I'm not picking up another single strawberry for you or anybody else. I'm done. Deadass. So you can either take me back to that house with the AC, or you can watch me sit right here in the dirt until the sun goes down... what you finna do about it, Country?"